Shaman Leveling: 1-13

11May

I decided to spend a little time on Belgawrath (Orc Shaman 13) this weekend. By doing the quests in the Orc starting area I was able to get him up to Level 6 as I mentioned before, and this weekend I was able to get him up to Level 13 by doing the majority of the quests found in Durotar. I skipped a few of the quests that I know exist over there, not because they aren’t good quests to do, but just because I did not feel like doing them since I have leveled so many characters in this area that it begins to bore me.

[EDIT: For those of you interested in specifics about the Shaman Totem Quests, I plan on having a single post that I will mention each of those in detail.]

Starting the Day Off Right: Breakfast
As any good Orc should do, I started the day off with a nice breakfast of fruit from the local vendor.
As you can see, the kind of fruit that Orcs consume, comes from our favorite plant: the beasts of Stranglethorn.

(Note: In case you didn’t catch the joke there, take a look at the picture on the sign, and then it’s name.)

Leveling Up
The first thing I want to note about leveling up a shaman, is that a good weapon goes a LONG way. I spent a whopping 47 silver on a level 5, two-handed axe for Belgawrath that had 7.0 DPS with +2 Strength and +1 Stamina on it. The damage on the weapon was pretty good for only a level 5 requirement, and the bonus to stats was nice since there are not a whole lot of options for that at such a low level. At level 6 the axe was scoring crits for 62-80 damage.

As soon as I put that axe on and gave it the Rockbiter shaman buff, the weapon was doing some serious damage. Whether it is the class or just my personal luck, Belgawrath was critting up a storm out there while I was leveling and was clearing mobs around his level with a simple rotation of Lightning Bolt > Earth Shock > Attack.

I pull with the LBolt, cast the shock as I run towards the enemy, and then my attack goes off as soon as I close in with them. They generally set off a charge of my Lightning Shield as well, which just adds more damage to the overall total which was easily more than they could take.

I would like to point out that having the Lightning Shield (and other shields) no longer require mana is a huge benefit to playing the shaman. That was one thing that always caused headaches with my previous shaman was having to waste 119 mana on a spell that did decent, but not significant damage to enemies that attacked me. I now cast Lighting Shield while I travel simply for the sake of doing it since it no longer requires mana to cast.

As for tips on leveling the Shaman at this stage of the game, the main thing that I can really tell you is that the damage from a decent weapon far outweighs the damage from any of your spells, especially if you take the time to grab one from the Auction House instead of relying on the ones you get from drops or quest rewards.

Secondly, Stone Claw Totem is very useful at this stage in the game when you are in close areas with multiple mobs or when you are fighting mobs that also have pets. In Durotar and the Barrends there are several mobs that have pets with them. Attacking the humanoid mob while letting their pet plink away at a totem that has a chance to stun them with each hit has proven to be a very safe method of leveling in those areas where your weak armor would otherwise have potentially ended up with a spirit walk back to your body.

After reaching Level 10, I began spending my talent points, starting out with Ancestral Knowledge. I only have 4 talent points right now, and all 4 of them are there.

While I do plan on running instances, I do still prefer to level solo instead, so I decided not to enhance my totems right now, though I may later on if I find myself drawn more towards grinding through instances than grinding through mobs one at a time.

At level 10 I purchased another two-handed axe from the AH, this one costing right around 1 gold to buy, and it had 10.7 DPS on it with +2 Strength and +2 Intelligence, which was more along the lines of what a shaman needs than my previous axe. From there I continued questing in Durotar until I had finished all of my quests, and then I went to the Barrens to start the quest chain for my Fire Totem.

At that point in time I was level 12, and I found everything that I needed for the quest in a fairly short amount of time. I had my Hearth Stone set in Razor Hill since it was pretty well the middle point between all of the areas that you need to go for the quest, and I put it to good use with these quests since you run back and forth so much otherwise.

I called it a night after I received my new totem, and managed to sneak one more level in there before I logged off for the night.

AchievementsShave and a Haircut: Here we have Belgawrath’s new look. In sticking with the character for which he was named, I actually should have given him a big, grey beard. Perhaps I will take a look at that as he levels up, but for right now he’s still a fiery youth.

Exploring Durotar: One of the natural occurrences of doing nearly all of the quests in one region is that you have a very high possibility of fully exploring the map.

Represent: Every good guildie needs to rep his guild! This happens to be some random guild that threw me an invite, and since I am such a low level I really don’t care what kind of guild I am in so I went ahead and took it. A cool guild tabard can make me stay in a low level guild better than anything else, so I always have to take a look at it. I did not get a shot of the tabard itself, but red with the skull & crossbones on it is a decent enough start.

Professions: All of my characters end up leveling their professions at least to the second level. I have not done this yet with leatherworking, but only because I have not had the desire to spend the time doing it yet. Instead, I have just thrown all of my skinning mats into my bank and will level it up at a later time, probably this week.

5 responses to “Shaman Leveling: 1-13”

lol got my orc shammy to 13 too … hmmm started a belf pally …. went to 72 before stopping ….. mebe i should try the shammy again …. wonda if those early barrens qs are easier now ??? LOL nice guide and take care all :P

As long as you’ve got a half-way decent weapon the Barrens don’t pose a challenge. If you can find, for instance, Boahn’s Fang from the rare spawn outside of WC, then you can pretty well handle everything up to your 30s with just that weapon..

Otherwise, just check the AH every now and then to make sure you’ve got the best weapon you can get. You don’t need to sink a fortune into it or anything, and can often find really good dps axes for just a couple of gold. Boahn’s Fang will probably cost you anywhere from 15-75g depending on the server, or you can try to farm it with your paladin if you’d like. It’s not necessary of course, it just makes things a bit easier for you.